The present invention generally relates to a telephone with a receiver arousing bone-conduction and air-conduction hearing which converts an input electric voice signal into vibration and acoustic signals by using the receiver. More particularly, it relates to a telephone with a receiver arousing bone-conduction and air-conduction hearing which induces a person to sense a sound through bone-conduction and air-conduction hearing during a telephone call, makes a hearing-impaired person with conductive hearing loss and an old person who has difficulty in air-conduction hearing use bone-conduction hearing, and makes an ordinary person having a normal sense of hearing use either bone-conduction hearing in a noise environment or air-conduction hearing in a normal environment.
A conventional receiver consisting of a general telephone loudspeaker is an air-conduction receiver. An air vibration sound being an output signal of this loudspeaker passes through the outer ear of a pinna and an external auditory meatus by an auditory mechanism, is converted into mechanical vibrations of the tympanic membrane and three small bones of the middle ear, is then amplified, and is transmitted to an auditory nerve through a cochlea of the inner ear comprising a sensorineural system, thereby making the telephone user perceive a sound of the other person.
Accordingly, a hearing-impaired person who has a lesion in the outer or middle ear and an old person who has a lowered hearing ability can hardly use a telephone call. The ordinary people having a normal hearing ability feel inconvenience in a telephone call under a noise environment.
Since the person who has difficulty in hearing can perceive a voice signal through a bone vibration, a bone-conduction telephone using a bone-conduction vibrator as a receiver has been developed. However, in this case, this telephone includes both an air-conduction hearing hand-set employing an air-conduction receiver for the ordinary people and a bone-conduction hearing hand-set employing a bone-conduction receiver for the hearing impaired, or includes only a bone-conduction hearing hand-set. As a result, the size of the conventional telephone becomes increased, the cost of production is expensive, and an additional telephone is needed when the ordinary person and the hearing impaired person live in the same place because they feel inconvenience in using one telephone.
Accordingly, the present invention is directed to a telephone with a receiver arousing bone-conduction and air-conduction hearing that substantially obviates one or more of the problems due to limitations and disadvantages of the conventional art.
It is an objective of the present invention to provide a telephone with a receiver arousing bone-conduction and air-conduction hearing, which uses a vibrator assuring an effective transmission of the air vibration, uses a vibrator of smoothly arousing bone-conduction and air-conduction hearing as a receiver, is capable of hearing a vibration signal through bone-conduction hearing as well as an acoustic signal through air-conduction hearing, makes a hearing-impaired person with conductive hearing loss and an old person who has difficulty in air-conduction hearing use bone-conduction hearing, and makes an ordinary person having a normal sense of hearing use either bone-conduction hearing in a noise environment or air-conduction hearing in a normal environment.
To achieve the above object, a telephone with a receiver arousing bone-conduction and air-conduction hearing in accordance with the present invention includes:
an overvoltage protecting circuit for protecting a telephone""s circuit from external overvoltage via a subscriber""s line;
a ring signal controller which is connected to the overvoltage protecting circuit, controls sound volume of a ring signal informing a person of a terminating call, and outputs the ring signal to a loudspeaker;
a voice signal/subscriber""s line controller which is connected to the overvoltage protecting circuit, controls the subscriber""s line by the terminating call and an originating call, and controls a transmitting/receiving of both an electric voice signal and a DTMF dial signal;
two-wire/four-wire converter which is connected to the voice signal/subscriber""s line controller, and performs two-wire/four-wire conversion in order to separate the receiving or the transmitting of the electric voice signal;
an amplifying circuit which is connected to the two-wire/four-wire converter, and amplifies the electric voice signal from the two-wire/four-wire converter in order to be received in a receiver of a hand-set;
a hand-set which includes a receiver and a transmitter, the receiver which receives and converts the electric voice signal from the amplifying circuit into a vibration signal and an acoustic signal and enables the vibration signal and the acoustic signal to be heard by using bone-conduction and air-conduction hearing, respectively, and the transmitter which converts an input voice signal into an electric signal and transmits the electric signal to the two-wire/four-wire converter;
a dial button for receiving a telephone number of the other person as an input;
a control circuit which is connected to the dial button, detects each number of the input telephone number, and controls the voice signal/subscriber""s line controller;
a DTMF signal generator which is connected to the control circuit, and generates a DTMF signal corresponding to each number applied from the dial button in response to a control of the control circuit; and
a hook switch which is connected to the voice signal/subscriber""s line controller, and initially controls the originating call and the terminating call.
Additional advantages, objects and other features of the invention will be set forth in part in the description which follows and in part will become apparent to those having ordinary skill in the art upon examination of the following or may be learned from practice of the invention. The objects and advantages of the invention may be realized and attained as particularly pointed out in the appended claims.